Behold All Things Are Become New
by LittleMender
Summary: Tag to 4x10 Fugue in Red.  She had followed him into the shadows and brought him out on the other side then forgiven him his trespasses.  It was more than he would have asked or hoped but no less than he would have expected of her.


**I swore to myself (and some of you) that I was too busy concentrating on my multi-chapter to write a tag, but what a fun (and still slightly dark) episode! Color me hopeless. And completely without ownership of anything pertaining to The Mentalist except my own fantasies.**

**Tag to Episode 4x10, Fugue in Red**

BEHOLD ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW

"Why didn't you tell me?"

His voice was woebegone and hurting, and God help her, she was glad to hear it. It was the first time he had spoken since he'd opened that door, and they'd been back on the road for over two hours.

"The doctor said it would be better if the memories came back naturally."

"'_Naturally_'?" he asked in bitter incredulity.

"On their own," she corrected.

"Were you ever going to tell me? If you hadn't realized I—" he stopped and rubbed a hand down his haggard face. "—I took the money?"

"I don't know . . . Maybe."

"You could've left me alone. Could've let me go."

"I told you. We're friends. Remember?"

"I remember." And he did. She had told him that while he sat on a bench with her trying to figure out how to get her into bed, thinking that if he helped her with the case, impressed her with his stupid acronyms it would pad his chances.

"So making me remember that was your version of the buddy system." Sarcasm was his only armor against the embarrassment and shame he felt. He should've known she wouldn't respond with her own hit, not after what they'd just come away from.

"What if you kept it up, kept living like that? What if you woke up one day and remembered, after you'd done things you couldn't undo? Things you couldn't take back?"

He thought of Tamara—Tamarra . . . whatever—and shuddered. But he still couldn't give in, even as he wondered what he could still possibly have to hide from her.

"Yeah. We all know I couldn't take living with the regret."

He slumped further down in the passenger seat and folded his arms across his chest, her worried look adding weight to the guilt pressing on him.

He sounded like nothing had changed, like he was still that hideous, atrocious ass.

"You do remember. Everything. Right?"

"Well, let's see." His arms relaxed, and he raised his right thumb and forefinger to pick at an invisible piece of something on the window ledge as he squinted into the dark. "My wife and child were brutally murdered by a serial killer I taunted, I've spent the last seven plus years of my life hunting him down (and putting away other criminals on the side), I shot the man I thought was their killer only to discover he wasn't, conned my way out of a murder rap by lying to a jury, and recently managed to estrange the closest thing I have to friends. How's that?"

"That," she nodded her head tightly, "about sums it up."

He wagged his head and rolled his hand in an exaggerated "see there and thank you very much" kind of way before she came back at him.

"Except for that last part."

He looked at her in disbelief. "Oh, come on! I came on to you . . . repeatedly, and was very bad at it, I might add. Ogled Van Pelt. Tried to get Rigsby to give me some pointers—"

He paused just long enough to glare at her snort.

"—Mucked my way through a crime scene, did my act in a night club—a _night club_ for pete's sake!—and as if all of that weren't enough, I _checked_ myself into a _hospital_!"

She couldn't help it—she laughed at him. And he felt better for it. Anything was better than the memory of how she'd looked at him when she realized he actually _had_ taken the money. And for that memory, as compensation for her damaged trust, he decided to come all the way out of hiding and show himself.

"And then I stole from a murderer. I lied and told him he could get away for half of what he'd taken, knowing I'd already set him up to be arrested."

Her laughter subsided even as the light went out of her eyes. She swallowed against what he knew to be tears and suddenly remembered her sitting on his hospital bed as he came to after his attack. There had been dried tear tracks on her face. She had cried over him, that he was hurt and maybe dead. And suddenly he felt dirty again.

She saw him crawling back inside himself and caught at him before he could disappear completely.

"You look like a belligerent five year-old when you do that."

"What?" he asked, his attention immediately diverted.

"When you're not happy with yourself. You're so used to being pleased over every little thing you say and do, thinking you're so smart." Was his bottom lip actually sticking out a little? "When you screw up or things don't go like you thought they would, you get that little scowl. I always expect you to throw a hissy fit."

"I've never thrown a hissy fit in my life," he said indignantly.

"Mm. I find that hard to believe. You're exactly the type."

"I'm not a type. I'm unique. Singular."

"Mm-hm. Where _is_ the money, Jane?"

He looked at her for a moment, thrown by the non sequitur. Then, he frowned as if in deep thought and put his index finger to his pursed lips.

"Oh!" she huffed. "Don't expect me to believe that's the one thing you can't remember."

"I don't know, Lisbon. That may be one of those things that has to come back naturally."

"Naturally," she responded dryly.

"That means 'on its own'."

"Maybe not. I'm pretty sure I could make you remember."

"I'd be very interested to see how you'd go about that, Teresa."

They both froze for a moment, each of them staring out the front windshield.

"I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant," she assured him. "That was the old you, not the new you." She frowned in thought. "The old new you, not the new new you. The new you after the old you but before—"

"Please stop that."

"The former you before you became the most recent—"

"Don't make me shut you up, woman."

"How? By putting your hand on my ass?"

He groaned, long and deep. "Go ahead. Get it out of your system. Then promise me I never have to hear any of it again."

"And you'll need to get that bracelet back from your 'responsible adult friend', _Doctor Tamarra_."

He shifted in his seat and groaned again.

"Or I could ask her," she continued in mock seriousness, "since you and I have such a special relationship. Open. It's not like I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I took you on." She could go on like this for hours, and he knew it. "Maybe you could give me some _pointers_. Provide me with a juicy acronym. Women. _Love_. Those."

"I changed my mind. Could you please just shut up about it?"

"Sure. You can rest up before you have to face Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt."

"You're going to let them at me, too?"

"I'm all about fairness, Jane, you know that."

He was nodding before she finished. "Yeah, truth, justice and the American Way."

"Damn straight."

"And you intend to stand there and watch every minute of it, don't you?"

"You know it, Casanova."

"If I beg mercy, Henriette, will you lend it?"

"If you beg so prettily I don't see how I can help it," she laughed, batting her eyelashes at him.

"I have to beg. Nothing else you've seen of me lately has been very pretty."

He was suddenly serious again, beating himself up. It was almost as hard for her to watch as when she had felt him slipping away, from himself _and_ from the team.

"That wasn't you."

"It was exactly me, the way I'd be without—" He wasn't sure just how to finish that sentence.

"Hey," she said softly, reaching to take hold of his forearm, "Jane. _Maybe_ that's how you would have been without _them_. And maybe without us. But that's not how you were. And the man you are now was always in there too."

He smiled, bittersweet, looking down at her hand then covered it with his own.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't see that as a positive."

"Well, it's not really. It's just the closest to a non-negative as I could get."

"I never realized what a mean girl you are."

"That's not what you said yesterday."

"Really. I don't know what I ever saw in you."

"You make it sound like you were interested in my character."

"If that's what I was looking for, I would've hit the jackpot."

"You weren't going to 'hit' anything, Jane."

"That sounds like a challenge."

"It's a fact. I'm too good for you."

"That, my dear," he said, lifting her hand to his lips and placing a light kiss on her fingertips," is a given."

He gave her hand a squeeze and released it, and she brought it fluidly back to wrap around the steering wheel.

"Are we all made up now?" he asked lightly.

"_We_ are. You still have to face the others."

"You're still going to let them loose on me? After the tender moment we just had?"

"If you think you can get around me with a little kiss and a squeeze, you've got another think coming."

"Of course I don't think that."

"I am not easy."

"Well, if that were the case we'd be having a very different conversation right now."

Her mouth dropped open in a silent gasp, and she looked at him just long enough to give him a good swat before turning her eyes back to the road. He let her have that. There were so many things she could have done to make him pay, the least of which was to let him continue wallowing in his mortification. But she had followed him into the shadows and brought him out on the other side then forgiven him his trespasses. It was more than he would have dared to ask for and everything he could've hoped but no less than he would have expected of her.

"It really isn't fair that I've been able to take my shots and not let them have theirs too, you know. But I could, maybe, give them a time limit. Say, a week?"

If the past two days were anything to go by, a week could certainly be a long time. Had he really asked _Rigsby _how to get in with _**Van Pelt**__? _ And something about ginger snaps . . . Oh, gad. It would probably take a week for him to be able to look them in the eye again.

At least things were all right with Lisbon. He shifted his eyes to watch her drive, focused and steady, and marveled yet again at her patience with him. She had been willing to accept his being such a horse's ass, even been willing to put up with the lechery (At that, an unbidden picture of his father rose in his memory, and he snuffed it out in anger as quickly as it had come.), knowing it wasn't just about the doctor's orders. She wouldn't have wanted him to remember his life's tragedy any more than his life's mission. And she would have gone so far as to let him go if that had been what he really wanted. It was only when she saw him turn outright criminal . . .

And that gave him pause. Not the criminal part. The letting him go _if that's what he really wanted_. There had been no reason for him to go back to the CBI once Tamara—Tammara . . . _whatever_—had signed him out. But something had drawn him back there, and he had responded to it without a thought. Not surprising, really. He _had _told her about his memory palace. He frowned down at his idle hands. Told her a lot of other things, too. He shook himself mentally, too tired and too raw over his recent behavior to think about it now. And there were parts of what he'd done and said he knew they'd _both_ never think about . . .

"A week sounds about right." She grinned her approval at his acceptance. "Is this where we hug?"

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "No, way, _Paddy!_ I'm never letting you hug me again. After what I saw at your night club reading? I went through a whole bottle of hand sanitizer trying to get rid of that grimy feeling. And if I could've gotten my hands on some antibiotics . . ."

He settled into his seat for the long ride back.

**END**


End file.
